Comrades Bid Tearful Goodbye To Comrade DP Buxi
CPI(ML) leaders and leaders of mass organisations from all over the country, as well as leaders of fraternal Left parties bid farewell to CPI(ML) Politburo member Comrade DP Buxi (Pranab da) who passed away on 26 July. His funeral was held on 27 July at Keoratala Crematorium.
The funeral was attended by many from fraternal parties: Comrades Biman Bose and Rabin Deb from CPIM, Naren Chatterjee from Forward Bloc, Ujjwal Chowdhury from CPI, Tapan Mitra and Rajiv Banerjee from RSP, Shankar Saha and Manab Bera from SUCI(C), Samir Putatunda and Anuradha Deb from PDS, Gautam Sen (veteran Marxist from Durgapur RE College), Sanat Ray Chowdhury (veteran communist leader from Chunchura who knew Pranabda from his student days), Prasenjit Bose, Sanjay Pathak from Chintan Patrika, Dr. Mrinmoy from PDSF, Prateep Nag and Samudra Datta from Shramjeevi Bhasha magazine, Basab Ghosh from CPI(ML) (led by Santosh Rana).
The CPI(ML) leaders who attended the funeral included General Secretary Comrade Dipankar, Politburo members Comrades Swadesh Bhattacharya, Kartick Pal, Partha Ghosh, Prabhat Kumar, Kumarasami, Shankar, Amar, Kunal, Dhirendra Jha, Manoj Bhakta, Janardan, Rajaram Singh, as well as CCMs Abhijit Mazumdar, Shubhendu, Vinod, Geeta Mandal, Meena Tiwari, Shashi Yadav, Saroj Chaube, Balindra Saikia, Yudhisthir, Radhakanta Sethi, Bangar Rao, Nagamani, Tirupati Gomango, Brij Bihari Pandey, Ishwari Prasad and Sudhakar Yadav, as well as MLAs Rajkumar Yadav and Sudama Prasad, and Ranjit (Runu) Bose from Jadavpur, Comrades Rabi Sen, NN Banerjee from Railway and other leading comrades from across West Bengal.
Speaking at the funeral Comrade Dipankar reminded comrades that Comrade Pranabda was the first one to reach Mansa to oversee the party’s 10th Party Congress preparations. After the cancer was diagnosed, comrades went to meet him, and he even sent a letter to the West Bengal State Committee meeting, assuring that his activism can’t be quenched by any illness however dire. He said, “Indeed Pranabda remained active right from his student days and fighting till the last. I never heard him say ‘No’ to any responsibility, never heard him admit defeat. The decade of the 70s gave us our party, taught us our revolutionary dreams, gave us courage – but Pranabda also showed us another of its gifts - the determination and stubbornness to stand firm in all circumstances good or bad, to refuse to feel defeatist. In West Bengal, Assam, in Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Southern states, he went cheerfully to work. He taught himself Assamese. Even in southern states where he didn’t know the language, he knew the language of the minds and hearts of comrades. Karbi Anglong comrades called to say they would observe mourning in Pranabda’s memory. Oftentimes our experience reduces our enthusiasm, makes us tired, but Pranabda taught us to turn experience into the hunger for new experiences, to keep his eyes and mind open and never close the doors. This is his legacy to us. We are all distressed and anguished at this loss, but we will take his legacy, what he has given us will give us strength and light to guide our path ahead.”
Comrades all over the country remembered their beloved Comrade DP Buxi (Pranab da) in condolence meetings. Condolence meetings were held in the Central office in Delhi where comrades of the central headquarters and the Delhi participated; in the party office at Patna and various districts of Bihar; in Lucknow and various districts of UP; in Ranchi and various Jharkhand districts; in West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam and Andhra Pradesh. At Puducherry comrades held a procession in his memory. At Bindukhatta, Lalkuan (Uttarakhand), comrades paid homage to Comrade DP Buxi on 28 July to commemorate the death anniversary of Comrade Charu Mazumdar. A memorial meeting for Comrade DP Buxi will be held in Kolkata on 17 August 2018.
